“No. Only one phase of it.”
“Anyway, a successful phase.”
“He wants to produce his little sensation,” ruminated Banneker, recalling Edmonds’s bitter diagnosis. “He does it by being clever. There are worse ways, I suppose.”
“He’d always rather say a clever thing than a true one.”
Banneker gave her a quick look. “Is that the disease from which the newspaper business is suffering?”
“I suppose so. Anyway, it’s no good for you, Ban, if it won’t let you be yourself. And write as you think. This isn’t new to me. I’ve known newspaper men before, a lot of them, and all kinds.”
“Weren’t any of them honest?”
“Lots. But very few of them independent. They can’t be. Not even the owners, though they think they are.”
“I’d like to try that.”
“You’d only have a hundred thousand bosses instead of one,” said she wisely.